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It’s a sunny, spring Saturday. It honestly can’t get better than this. Aside from a sunny, SUMMER Saturday.

I said I’d post the recipe for my strawberry oat bars on Friday, unfortunately I got a little sidetracked once again. So, I’m typing it out today :).

The Ingredients:

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 cup strawberry jam

The Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly grease pan

2. In a medium bowl combine first 7 ingredients until the mixture comes together – coarse crumb

3. Press 2/3s of the mixture into the prepared pan. Spread the jam onto the crust.

4. Here I made a chocolate mixture using cocoa powder, some sugar and milk and spread that on top of the strawberry jam.

5. Sprinkle the rest of the mixture on top

6. Bake for roughly 20 to 30 minutes.

7. Cool and eat :).
There you have it, super super simple recipe!! – I was going to take pictures however when it came time to, the family had consumed all of the oat bars :(. BOO!

Now for the other part of my daily blah blah blah.

This little girl, is the love of my life. No joke. She drives me crazy, like any “child” drives their mother crazy..but I adore her with every fiber of my being.

Saying that though, it truly is a shame that she despises the sunshine. She hides. We went to the dog park and she spent the entire time in the tall grassy area, hiding. Meanwhile, I’m basking in all of the suns glory.

I wonder how she’ll do on a nice summer hike. I’m not prepared to care her or find her a mini umbrella hat. Although, I have to be honest here, how incredibly badass would that be? A dog with an umbrella hat. I’d feel like a total goof walking her. But at least she’d walk and not make me drag her behind. Hmmm..ideas are forming! You must think I’m crazy, which is partially true. Who isn’t though?

Anyways! There just is nothing like this beautiful sunshine and warm weather we’re experience in beautiful British Columbia, in the middle of May! HEAVEN. Which brings me to my other point. Songs.

You know how there are songs that just don’t sound the same when you listen to them during fall or winter? I have to say that Sublime’s “Santeria”, “Summer Time”(well duh!) & “What I got” – to name a few; City and Colour’s “The grande optimist”, “O’ Sister” as well as a bunch of Tiger Army, Lady Antebellum and T.Swift songs are just like that. Everyone has their “summer” tracks. And sometimes we get fooled into playing them a wee bit early ;). Like now for instance. What are your summer tracks? Think about it. Let me know, if ya want to :).

…I don’t have a fascination with rubber duckies, I’m not crazy about them, I don’t use them, nor are they my “very best friend”. That fella up there, the rubber ducky, is Mila’s new toy. I found out a while ago that she loves chewing on them. So I decided to buy her a nice big one, that would keep her occupied for hours and not give her gas. Boy, does she have awful gas. It’s terrible.

The reason behind the rubber ducky was to keep her busy and distracted with something that didn’t make a THUMP! every, single time she dropped it. Nothing hurts my head more than her bones hitting the ground from over two feet up, while I’m doing homework. So, this seemed like the reasonable answer. She does have other toys, but when it comes to ones that will solidly keep her busy, well, she ran out.

If you’re a pet owner, actually an owner of a very rambunctious breed of dog, get them a rubber ducky. I swear by it (:.

Did I get my six question, six plus part accounting homework done today? I did. So there ya have it.

My humble moment for the day was not getting through hours of homework, making a delicious dinner or even going out for coffee with a friend. My humble moment for the day was taking that goofy looking girl you see above for a nice little walk. As if cuddles weren’t enough, just her looking up at me like that, waiting for me to throw her weird two legged, faceless squeak toy for her is enough. I mean, just look at her!

Walking Mila has been one of the best things for me, at first it used to be short .5km walks, however, the more she grows the longer the walks get. Not because she can handle long walks now but because if I don’t walk her for more than 2.5km she just doesn’t get the necessary exercise a dog her size needs. Although, I’m not saying that that walk is all she gets. Being a dog owner, one must establish routines. Right? I didn’t really realize this at first – aside from the routine feeding times – but even the walks count.

Mila is an incredibly energetic dog. It’s in her breed to be. They are hyper and need TONS of running around, daily. Like I said, the walks won’t cut it.

During one of our daily walks I decided to take random routes and better acquaint us to the neighbourhood. I’ve lived here for 5+ years but didn’t really know what was around us until getting Mila. Anyways..back to the topic. I discovered a little dog park in one of the neighbouring areas. How awesome is that? Prior to this the only off-leash dog park I knew of was one that was driving distance away. Not very routine or walk friendly. So discovering this park was like a dream come true. I honestly couldn’t tell you who was more excited, me or her.

So we walked through the gate, I told her to sit, took off her leash and she began her inspection. She sniffed every inch of that park. Then she ran, in circles, over and over and over again. I felt silly because I had nothing to throw for her, I hadn’t prepared to let her off leash and hadn’t prepared to throw her anything. Like her, I explored. I found a stick and she fell in love with it.

Awesome, eh??

Owning a dog means a routine, this is ours. Walk for x amount of kilometres, go to the off-leash area, walk home. Solid routine. She comes home panting and collapses. Happy puppy, happy pet owner.

-D.

PS

I think that areas like this are vital to have in suburban districts. I am noticing more and more that people are venturing out and getting dogs but I’m also noticing that there are just not enough dog friendly areas. Dogs aren’t meant to be couped up day-in, day-out. They love to run, play and explore. They’re curious. Even the little ones!

PPS

A great way to keep track of the amount of walking you and your walking partner(s) do is to use an app! Or if you’re a little more old school, use a pedometre. I use an app, considering my phone is my life. I wish I were joking. Here’s a screenshot of the app after today’s walk. It’s called “Walkmeter”, if you want more info on it, read Afternoon walk.

On Sunday – January 15th – my best friend picked up his puppy. He then came to visit me at work with the lil’ guy. What a precious, adorable, bundle of joy! Although all he wanted to do was sleep.
A few hours later, he and Lars (the puppy’s name at the time) came to visit my puppy and I. Mila is almost 6 months old and a basket case. Also, incredibly huge! No, not really, but when compared to that tiny fella, oh boy.
I keep getting sidetracked.
Anyways! They came to visit and Mila was confused. So confused by him and he just started to growl and bark. A mean mean bark, I must say! He scared her. Which surprised us both.
He then proceeded to chase her. Honestly the cutest thing I have ever seen!
I will say this though, I do not miss the super young puppy stages. It makes me feel good to know my puppy knows her name as well as command and tricks. Oh, and the fact that potty training is done and over with:).Oh..and Lars’ new name is Boss. Why? Well…he’s like a boss ;). Silly? Yes! Fitting? Incredibly so! Besides, the name Lars is just bleh (my opinion, no offense whatsoever)!

As dog owners, it’s a given that we must walk our dogs but it wasn’t till today (well technically yesterday) that I thought about how many steps I do while walking Mila. For some, it’s a silly thought but if you think about it it really isn’t all that bad to keep track. I figured, being an Apple fiend and all, that there must be an app for keeping track! I decided to download a few and give them a shot on our daily walk. The apps I liked best was one simply named “Pedometer” (free) and “Walkmeter” ($4.99). These apps listed not only my steps but also distance, calories, lap time etc. As silly as it sounds, I’m excited to use thess apps more often to get a better idea of what one I like more.. I love the idea of knowing the distance I walk her and it helps in my new found resolution to lose weight – I know it’s not New Years yet ;).

I’m laying in bed, wide awake, trying to figure out what to do to pass time and tire myself out.
I’ve resorted to writing!

A few days ago I was out Christmas shopping and decided Mila needed a new toy. I couldn’t figure out what to get her then I realized that she didn’t have a rope bone to play with any more. So the type of toy was decided. Now it was deciding between the “name brand” toy or the “no-name” toy. You’re probably wondering what the big deal is but you try deciding! Typically a name brand product is tried and true where as this no-name I’ve no idea about! The difference between the two was size and price. The name brand was small and roughly $8 and the no-name was quite a bit bigger for $6. Hmm hmm. Oh! And the no-name was minty (which I wasn’t too sure about). In the end I went with the $6 no-name rope bone due to the fact that Mila goes through toys and bones like there’s no tomorrow.
I’m glad I went with that one for a number of reasons.
1. She absolutely loved it -the mint was a hit
2. She won’t leave the thing alone which means she would have gone through the smaller one within days.
3. It’s been a great tool to help her not chew on other things – which has been quite hard to stop her from doing.